


The friendship in the shawl

by Lullabymoon



Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Plant Magic, ambient magic, metal magic, textile magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-20 15:46:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17025510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lullabymoon/pseuds/Lullabymoon
Summary: Sandry, Daja and Briar work together to send Tris a little piece of home.





	The friendship in the shawl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FluffyLlamacorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FluffyLlamacorn/gifts).



> Set after _The Will of the Empress_.

Sandry could hear the steady rhythm of the forge in use as she approached Number 6 Cheeseman Street. Daja had mentioned a large commission a few days past, but she hadn't realised that the work would keep her working well into the evening days later. She dismounted and let one of her guards stable her horse while she went directly to the kitchen. Briar was standing over a pot of what smelled like spicy stew and nodded towards the table.

"Tris sent a book for us to read."

Sandry could see the opened letter with several pages already scattered across the table. She moved towards the stove to heat water for tea. "Have you read far?"

Briar shook his head. "Only a page while this was cooking."

She hmmed in response and brought out the cups. She didn't ask him further about the letter. "Does Daja know dinner will be ready soon?"

Briar nodded again. "Just told her."

She stood curiously over the stew pot and inhaled. She couldn't put her finger on the spices in the stew, but it smelt amazing. She didn't have to speak the question before Briar spoke.

"It's the first crop from seeds we managed to bring back from Gyongxe." He looked so proud, and she couldn't blame him."It's not the exact mix in the dishes we tried as not everything was suited to Summersea, but hopefully it tastes just as good."

It was rare to see Briar talk about something good from his time in Gyongxe, but it was good to see him opening up again. It had only been six months since their trip to Namorn but they had slowly healed over the cracks in their friendship, and it felt good to see reminders of their bond.

Daja appeared, still in the process of using a rag to clean her hands as she walked into the kitchen. She sniffed the air. "Smells good."

They settled down around the table and ate.

*

They moved effortlessly into an old routine of clearing and washing the dishes after they had eaten, and it didn't take much to settle back down again, each of them with a different page of Tris' letter. It adsorbed them all, and Sandry could feel the amusement of reading anecdotes and the feeling of missing Tris from everyone in their bond.

She couldn't help but feel particularly amused at Tris' description of a visit to one of the mages' markets in Lightsbridge.

_The teachers suggested visiting the market as a valuable tool to see how our skills could be directly applied after certification. Everyday objects with spells written in sigils on them were one of the most common forms of mages selling their services. The market itself was the same as markets elsewhere but some of the goods…_

Sandry bit back a snort as Tris described the varying qualities and the prices. Briar looked up from the page ahead of her and laughed. "Can't tell what she's more annoyed about, the bad work or the ridiculous prices." She let loose her own laugh.

Daja pulled the page from Sandry's hand, and they sensed the spike of amusement when she reached the detailed description of the exact state of a lucky shawl and the exact price of it. "Just because it had only one poorly drawn sigil spelled onto it!" Daja burst out laughing after she repeated Tris' words.

They all broke down in laughter and she missed Tris a little less.

*

Something nagged at Sandry over the next few days, and it was only as she finished a piece of weaving and saw the glow of magic that she realised.

The shawl in Tris' letter.

She hated to hear of such bad work, especially when such high prices were charged, that would likely not even keep the buyer warm let alone offer whatever magic it was purported to. She shook her head. There was nothing she could do about it from here, and anyway Tris had made her opinions known in Lightsbridge.

It did however give her an idea though, especially as she knew Niko was heading to Lightsbridge around the time of Tris' birthday and could deliver it.

*

"You want to dye, spin and knit a shawl with beads in a month?" Briar gave her one of his looks that said he thought she was crazy.

She sighed. "The dyeing and spinning will take a sennight. Then I can knit a plain shawl within a fortnight. The question I'm asking is can you help with the plants to dye the wool and create the beads in that time?" Sandry looked back and forth between Briar and Daja. As she expected, breaking it down like that got them thinking, and she could sense their concentration as they mulled it over.

"Depends on the plant," "Depends on what type of bead," they both spoke at the same time, and she knew they were fully on board with the idea.

*

Briar turned up at the small workshop she kept within the Citadel with the sage leaves they had finally settled on. She put her knitting down out of reach on the far side of the work table. She could see a subtle glow from the leaves as she opened the box and felt the first stirrings of confidence that her plan would work. She gently poured the leaves into the pan of water she had already started to heat up, and she watched the leaves slowly swirl as the water moved. She could feel Briar's presence in the leaves and hoped that magic would transfer with the dye as it left the leaves and fixed itself to the fibre. 

She moved over to the basin beside the stove and used tongs to pull out the ready prepared fleece she had soaked overnight. She carefully lowered it into the dye pot and gave it a stir to make sure it became fully submerged.

She caught Briar looking thoughtfully at the tongs. "You don't normally use tongs."

"The dye needs to be fixed to the fibre so it doesn't rinse out the first time it gets wet. I use a mixture of alum and potash, and they are not pleasant on skin." She could remember the first time she had dyed fibre and the itch on her hands when she had reached in to pull out her wool. She had forgotten in her excitement that vital though the mordants were to the process, they weren't fibre or magic that she could easily control on her skin.

The memory must have passed through their bond as she saw Briar look warily at the now empty basin. He moved on to looking around the rest of her workshop and it occurred to her that none of the other three had actually seen her workshop in the citadel. She checked on the heat of the dye pot and left it to settle. It would take several hours to get a deep colour on the fibre, and whilst she had plenty of jobs around the workshop to keep her occupied, she could take the time to show Briar some of the larger equipment he hadn't seen before.

*

The sage dyed fibre felt soft in her hands and her fingers itched to get started. She paused for a moment though as she always did before she started spinning and wondered what she would put into the wool. A touch of her usual so the material didn't stain or stay wrinkled. But what else?

Briar had already enhanced the sage with his magic, boosting the calming and memory aid properties, and the resulting colour practically sang with his magic and presence.

She smiled to herself. She just had to add herself. She thought of Tris as she started the wheel, feet treadling to keep the momentum going, the fibre teased between her finger and thumb. She captured the end in the leader and felt the pull of tension as the bobbin started to spin and the fibre began to twist. She pulled her hands apart, drafting out the wool between them and let the twist start to travel down the fibre, and watched as a thread started to form.

*

Daja's idea for copper beads went beautifully with the dyed wool, and she had no doubt they would be full of Daja's presence and memories as well. Daja had said last night that the beads would be finished today, and she arrived early to Daja's workshop to see the Daja finish the process.

Daja looked serene as she used her magic to soften the edges of two copper domes, fingers carefully fusing them together without the need for solder. Beside her was a pile of already fused beads and they were the perfect size and shape for the shawl. She marvelled at them, knowing how much work they had taken, the repeated hammering and heating of copper discs until they were the right size. She had mentioned that to Daja the night before, but Daja had simply smiled and said the copper was more fun to work with than the iron for nails.

Sandry grabbed a nearby cloth and started polishing a fused bead as she watch Daja continue to work.

*

She had though long and hard about the design of the shawl, had discussed it over tea with Lark and Rosethorn but in the end had decided on a simpler design. A triangular shawl with a plain centre with only a hint of a lace edging, with the beads knitted in the edging to give a pleasant weight as it sat around Tris' shoulders. It would look fairly ordinary but would fit in with Tris' wardrobe and Lightsbridge, with only Tris aware of the ambient magic.

*

The shawl was her constant companion over the fortnight. She knitted in the evenings with her Uncle, as she listened in on his councils, as she met with Lark, with Briar and Rosethorn, with Daja and Frostpine, with Niko, all the meetings and feelings and memories feeding into the emerging fabric.

*

She placed the shawl down on the table, and smoothed down an edge nervously. It lay flat, the lace edging nice and clear now the shawl had been washed and dressed, and the beads caught the light. "I still wonder if we should get Niko to put some sigils on it."

Briar shook his head. "Nah. Let them Lightsbridge snobs miss it if they're too good to look past book spells."

Her nerves eased, and she stroked the shawl one final time before she started folding it to pack it. "You had better write the letter since my hands are still tired from knitting."

"You know what my writing is like." Briar complained.

"Yes but Daja handmade all the beads." She gave him a sweet look that knew exactly what she was saying. "Luckily we are here to help you with what to say." She exchanged a smile with Daja as Briar sighed and reached for a sheet of paper.

_Dear Tris…_


End file.
